Spain
Growing numbers of repatriations of minors envisaged, and the
building of reception centres abroad

In July 2007, the Junta de Andalucía (Andalusian regional
government) announced that 988 of the total of around 1,200 unaccompanied
minors in Andalusian care institutions would be repatriated to
their home country, Morocco, because "most of them do not
fulfil the profile" of minors to be protected established
by Spanish law, they "endanger" the Andalusian protection
services by "saturating" them, and they come from "structured
families that can perfectly take charge of them".

Brigitte Espuche of the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos
de Andalucía (APDHA) notes that this is a change of course,
as Andalusia, in contrast to the regions of Madrid or Catalunya,
had been prudent in matters regarding the protection of children,
and had not carried out any repatriations of unaccompanied minors
in the last three years. The shift involves the minors being
portrayed primarily as a "threat" or as "illegal
immigrants", thus criminalising them, rather than as minors
at risk who have special rights and towards whom a special duty
of care is applicable. APDHA and Andalucía Acoge responded
to the statements by the Junta de Andalucía by launching
a campaign against the repatriation of unaccompanied minors.
These developments are taking place in spite of criticism of
Spanish institutions by international bodies (UN, UNICEF, the
Council of Europe), national authorities (the Spanish Defensor
del pueblo, or ombudsman) and NGOs for failing to respect the
rights of unaccompanied minors in its charge.

A Spanish-Moroccan memorandum of understanding for "assisted
repatriation" was signed in December 2003, and an agreement
between the two countries was reached in 2004 concerning the
repatriation of 563 minors, although 81 were eventually deported.
In early 2005, indiscriminate expulsions were carried out at
the border crossings of the Spanish north African enclaves of
Ceuta and Melilla, and the UN received allegations of abuses,
largely by the Moroccan police, including ill-treatment, torture
and even rape. Spanish efforts to find a solution to guarantee
that the minors would receive due care in the absence of reliable
Moroccan counterparts led to plans for the "externalisation"
of centres for repatriated minors. The construction of four such
centres and four flats for the same purpose began in 2005 with
EU and Spanish development and co-operation funding, from both
the national government and the Madrid and Catalan regional governments.
Diagonal newspaper reports that three million euros were earmarked
by the Madrid regional government to build two reception centres
in Morocco, and two million euros allocated by the Catalan regional
government to fund four flats in Tangiers.

The Canary islands government also plans to open its own centre
and negotiations are underway for Andalusia to do the same, while
the Popular Party group has also submitted a proposal to the
Biscay province general assembly for it to open its own centre
for repatriated under-14s (see the article by Peio Aierbe, "Protecting
foreign minors or getting rid of them?"). In an article
in Diagonal, Fernán Chalmeta notes that a UNICEF report
from 2006 advised against the construction of centres for repatriated
minors, as they would encourage reptriations without guaranteeing
the interests of minors, that Moroccan authorities do not have
the means to guarantee that the centres will function adequately,
and that a law passed in 2003 to punish illegal emigration from
Morocco with fines and/or imprisonment is applied to repatriated
Moroccan minors, thus criminalising them.

Nacho De La Mata, a lawyer from the Coordinadora de Barrios
network in Madrid who represents foreign minors, criticises the
lack of information concerning the numbers of foreign minors
in public regional child care institutions, and said that the
minors fear repatriation and try to avoid it. He adds that repatriations
take place rather regularly, "around two per week",
although there are peaks and troughs, and that the proceedings
required by Spanish law to guarantee the "superior interest
of the minor" are not complied with"systematically".
He describes a repatriation: "It takes place in the early
morning: several police officers turn up, enter the minor's dwelling,
tell him that he will be repatriated and to collect his things
-sometimes they don't have time to- and is taken in a police
car, handcuffed with white girths..." to a runway in Barajas
airport. He is then made to board an airplane, where he is sat
at the back, escorted by two police officers and, when minors
have resisted, there have been cases when their mouth has been
covered with gauze or they have been threatened, and they are
handed directly over to the border police in their country of
origin, without guarantees that they will be taken to their families
or to protection centres for children, De La Mata adds.

&COPY; Statewatch ISSN 1756-851X.Material may be used
providing the source is acknowledged.Statewatch
does not have a corporate view, nor does it seek to create one,
the views expressed are those of the author. Statewatch is not
responsible for the content of external websites and inclusion
of a link does not constitute an endorsement.